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Measurement of Unmet Need for Contraception: A Counterfactual Approach

Mahesh Karra
Version Date: 22 January 2026
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INTRODUCTION
This replication package reproduces the results for the paper entitled "Measurement of Unmet Need for Contraception: A Counterfactual Approach," which is published in Studies in Family Planning, DOI: 10.1111/sifp.12216.

This package contains 1 Stata Do-File (.do) that replicates the tables and figures in the main paper. 
All data that are used for this study are available for free download after registering with the DHS Program at http://dhsprogram.com/data/. The pooled analytic dataset is comprised of Individual Recode (IR) files in Stata format (.dta) 
for 2,073,523 women from 80 DHS surveys that cover 56 countries from 2010 to 2019. The Stata do file can be modified to run for one or
multiple datasets.

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FILE AND FOLDER SET-UP:
1. Save all files (dataset, do file) in the same folder. 

To run the do file, open the REPLICATION DO FILE.do file in Stata, change the "maindir" file path to the directory where the files are saved (line 7 in the do-file), change the dataset filename (line 11 in the do-file), and then execute the do-file in Stata by clicking Run. 
The outputs will be stored in the folder.

TOTAL EXPECTED RUNTIME: 2 minutes

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INSTRUCTIONS ON THE PACKAGES THAT NEED TO BE INSTALLED:
The tables are produced using Stata version 17. Before running the master do-file, please make sure to install the following packages in Stata:
- estout, version 3.30

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QUESTIONS?
Please direct any questions regarding this replication package to the corresponding author. 

Mahesh Karra
Associate Professor of Population and Family Health
Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University
mvk2109@cumc.columbia.edu

